Description

In this jaw-dropping young adult debut, a sixteen-year-old girl living in a radiation-laden world must fight for her freedom.

When the flash curtain fell, it divided them. Now those behind the curtain must risk their lives to reach freedom on the other side.

Orion and her caving partner, Dram, are Subpars, expected to mine the dangerous tunnels of Outpost Five for precious cirium–the only element that can shield humanity from the deadly particles emanating from a wall of radiation called the flashfall.

Behind the flashfall: slow but certain death. Beyond it: the protected city, where miners who’ve collected enough cirium to earn entry can live safe from radiation.

But when newcomers arrive at Outpost Five, disturbing revelations make Orion question everything she thought she knew about life on both sides of the cirium shield. As conditions at the outpost grow increasingly dangerous, it’s up to Orion to forge a way past the flashfall–and beyond the world as she knows it.